Title: Turn the Page
Characters: Jack Bauer, Kim Bauer
Setting: Post-S7
Spoilers: End of S7
Rating: PG
Prompt: from sardonicynic: Jack & Kim, There was once a velveteen rabbit, and in the beginning he was really splendid.
There was once a velveteen rabbit, and in the beginning he was really splendid.
Once Dr. Macer had taken her stem cells, there wasn't much for Kim to do except wait, hope and worry.
She spent much of her time at the hospital, taking every chance she could to be in her father's room. Partly because it had been so long that she'd searched for him, because she wanted to spend every minute she could, look for any sign that he was improving. That she hadn't made the wrong decision in trying to save his life, condemning him to live with severe brain injuries when she knew that was the last thing he would want.
Partly, it was because she couldn't bear the thought of sitting in Renee's apartment, stomach twisting into knots every time the phone rang, the swift stab of dread before she knew who was calling.
She couldn't be at the hospital all the time though, and there were only so many places she could go sight-seeing when her mind wasn't really on what she was looking at, anyway. The Smithsonian and the Mall weren't the distractions she wanted.
Luckily for her, Renee had a library card and didn't mind if Kim used it.
When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It was true, too.
It took Kim a while to find the right books. Mysteries, thrillers and a lot of literary fiction were too dark, too sad, too dense when she had trouble concentrating. She tried romance, thinking that something light might help, but when she tried reading a couple, she felt nothing, no satisfaction at a happy ending.
Finally one day she wandered into the children's section. She'd intended to find some board books or picture books she could read to Teri over Skype, but a display of "Staff and Kid Favourites" caught her eye. She remembered quite a few of the books she saw there; remembered curling up under the covers with Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and a flashlight, speed-reading to see how Harry and Hermione were going to save Sirius Black and hoping neither of her parents walked past her door. She remembered sitting in her room for hours after reading Matilda and concentrating as hard as she could on a pen on her desk, trying to make it move. She remembered working with her mother in the garden in their backyard, wanting to plant all the flowers Mary did in The Secret Garden.
And in the back of the bin, she found a copy of The Velveteen Rabbit. Her throat closed as she pulled it out, her father's voice the one she heard in her head as she started reading. He'd read this to her, as he'd read the other most-treasured books of her childhood. He might not have been around as much as other fathers, books interrupted sometimes for weeks thanks to his work, but that had just made the time with him more precious. For a long time after he'd read it, she had gone to sleep hugging her most treasured stuffed animals, trying to pour her love into them so that it wouldn't be her fault that they didn't become real.
It had been a long, long time before she'd realized that she couldn't breathe life into them simply by willing it.
Clutching The Velveteen Rabbit and some of the others from the bin to her chest, she headed for the checkout desk.
As she read, she found something comforting about the well worn lines. They were like an old blanket; warm, comforting, familiar. She read while she waited to be allowed back into her dad's room, and when she finally sat down in the chair next to his bed, she pulled out The Velveteen Rabbit and started to read it aloud.
Dr. Macer had encouraged her to talk to her father, as no one could know until he woke up--if, a little voice in her head always whispered, if he woke up, if he hadn't suffered too much brain damage--whether he could hear them. Now she started reading the familiar books, the books he had read to her, a little part of her hoping that he could hear her, that he would recognise the words and remember perching on the edge of her bed and spreading the book across their laps before he began to read.
Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.
Day after day, she went to the hospital, sat in her father's room as much as she was allowed, and read. Dr. Macer tapered off the drugs that were keeping him in the medically-induced coma once the tests showed there were no more prions in his system. Day after day, she waited for any sign that he was coming back.
In some ways, the coma lifting was worse than when he'd been drugged. There were small shifts and twitches, moans and incoherent mumblings. After a few days, there were times when her father would open his eyes, his head turned toward her, but he would stare through her, as though she wasn't there, or he didn't seem to recognize her. He would weakly try to pull away from the doctors and nurses, as though he was protecting himself from some kind of harm. He would even try to pull away sometimes when she held his hand.
She kept reading, hoping each time that she would somehow break through and that he would understand on some level that she was here. That she loved him, and wanted him to get better. She read until her voice grew hoarse, until her throat closed at the memories, until the nurses forced her to go get something to eat or to get some sleep.
She read, one hand holding the book and one holding her father's hand, until one day she looked up from the book and saw that he was looking at her--not through her, not just in her direction, but at her. His lips moved, and while his voice was soft and indistinct, she knew he was trying to say her name.
She smiled at him, tears prickling her eyes as she squeezed his hand.
"Welcome back, Daddy," she said, and closed the book.
"Why, he looks just like my old Bunny that was lost when I had scarlet fever!" But he never knew that it really was his own Bunny, come back to look at the child who had first helped him to be Real.
Across the lawn came the Master of Misselthwaite and he looked as many of them had never seen him. And by his, side with his head up in the air and his eyes full of laughter walked as strongly and steadily as any boy in Yorkshire--Master Colin.
The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well.